Trump may be in real trouble from new civil and criminal cases

Courts in D.C., New York and Georgia are moving to rein in the former president’s false statements

March 11, 2021 at 5:00 a.m. CST

Recent statements by Donald Trump and his enablers prove that he and his Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen aren’t departing from American politics anytime soon. But neither is the push to hold him legally accountable, as shown by a new lawsuit — the second against Trump by a member of Congress arising out of the failed Jan. 6 insurrection. As attorneys who have overseen prosecutions or other accountability efforts in Republican and Democratic administrations alike, we believe the combination of civil cases and a pair of rapidly accelerating state criminal investigations make for a potent force to combat the ex-president’s ongoing wrongdoing.

The new litigation, filed Friday by impeachment manager Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), alleges that the former president, his son Don Jr., his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) conspired to prevent Swalwell and other members of Congress from discharging their duty to certify that Joe Biden had won last year’s presidential election. The complaint says the defendants engaged in an extensive, months-long promotion of the Big Lie, capped off by Trump’s fighting words and the violence that followed on the day of the electoral vote count.

Such alleged conspiracies are prohibited by the Ku Klux Klan Act, which was passed during the Reconstruction era to fight efforts to block public officials from performing their duties. The new suit joins the pending one initiated by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who is also suing the former president and Giuliani, as well as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers on similar grounds.

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